Lost Jigsaw
by bluestargem
Summary: Drabble collection in response to Geth's 24 word challenge - 24 glimpses at love, hope, power and promises in the life of one Cato Barrett. Rated T for safety.
1. Promise

**_Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins and not me - unfortunately._**

_I've decided to write about Cato's life using these 24 prompts. I've sort of ventured out of my comfort zone for this one, so I'm uncertain as to how this will turn out to be and all I can say is that each word is going to be a scene in Cato's life so that his story will gradually unfold. I wanted to create a different Cato from the one in the book – a humane one who was once a boy and what made me as he was in the book. So, enjoy (hopefully)! _

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_**Promise**_

Sitting in that dark, musty room, beside the bed, holding his mother's skeletal, wasted hand.

"Promise me," were her last words, uttered in a harsh, ragged breath. "Promise me, Cato. You will not volunteer for the Games. You will do nothing that will increase your chances of being chosen. _Promise me_."

Those eyes, boring into his with a brute, desperate intensity…it was a gaze that would haunt him forever.

_Promise me._

He let out a struggling breath, the world a dizzying red, fading, disappearing...

_I'm sorry, Mother._

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_So how was it?_

_*looks at button below meaningfully*_


	2. Bells

**_Disclaimer: Everything that you recognise belongs to Suzanne Collins._**

_Thanks for the comments! Much appreciated, of course :) Hopefully, this one will be alright._

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_**Bells**_

When Cato was little, his mother often brought him to the District Square for shopping. The District Square was a busy place, full of bustling businessmen, gossiping ladies and loud music. Colourful shops filled it, with flashing posters and yelling shopkeepers promoting their products.

It sickened him.

All the loud jumbles of sounds pressing against his ears; the blur of emotions, colours; the suffocating presence of a hundred thousand other people jostling him to and fro – he hated it.

There was a tall bell tower as well. It loomed over the Square in a powerful, yet strangely calming manner, its huge clock face ticking away, solid and precise, governing the actions of the citizens of District 2, controlling time itself.

And when that bell rang, its deep sonorous tones sweeping across the Square, the businessmen would stop and turn back to their offices, the ladies would fall silent, gathering their bags and trotting away back home and the shopkeepers would retreat back into the depths of their empty shops, bringing with them their products.

His mother would collect up her own bags and usher him back to their house. And the Square, rowdy and chaotic a minute ago, would be as still and as silent as death itself.

He liked the bell.

He liked its power.

He's always had an affinity with bells ever since.

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_**A/N: **Not what I wanted, but it's alright. Reviews make me smile, by the way._


	3. Fly

**_Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Except for the chocolate I just ate, I suppose :)_**

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_**Fly**_

He stood there in the wintry rain, numbness spreading across his body, sticky puddles soaking his shoes. Ragged breaths shook his frame as he slumped to the ground, his eyes pools of desolate despair. Vaguely, he felt hot tears sliding down his cheeks.

She was gone. Mother was really gone.

And there was no-one else left to love him.

On a tree, a small bird chirped cheerfully, one bright eye considering him curiously.

_Sitting beneath the sun with his mother, watching the birds singing in the spring…_

The bird turned around and stretched its wings, poised for flight…

_They watched as the singing birds twirled freely in the air…_

He wanted to fly too. Wanted to fly away from it all, like the birds. Once upon a time, he believed in it.

_Mummy, can I fly?_

_Of course, sweetie, if you want to. _

Passing years, his mother's presence gone…

_Daddy, I want to fly._

_What are you fucking talking about, boy? No-one can fly._

Another dream crushed, another hope flattened.

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_Reviews are like chocolate. You can't get enough of it!_


	4. Gratitude

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins does and I am not making any profit by writing this story. Gosh, if I **_**did**_** own Hunger Games, I wouldn't even be **_**here**_**.**_

_Huh, I actually got off my lazy arse to update for once :D_

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_**Gratitude**_

He has an older sister.

She is brave, generous, sweet, loving…just like his mother. And she loves him. He knows that.

Because every time his father screams drunkenly in rage, the belt gleaming unmercifully in his hand, it is his sister who shields him, who takes the blow instead. And it is she who lies on the ground feeling the belt cutting through her flesh.

And it is her eyes that dull, and her skin that scars, and her blood that pools, crimson, on the already stained carpet.

It is enough to make him cower willingly behind her as she screams in pain.

But one day, he comes home to find her on the floor and his father standing over her shouting incoherent words of rage. The belt rises, glinting like a snake's eye, and suddenly, something hard grips his heart as he sees the helpless figure on the ground and without thinking, he lunges in front of her, and all that registers is that, for once, their positions are reversed...

And the next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor, feeling a sticky wetness seep through his clothes and a pain so unbearable that he couldn't even scream.

He never did it again.

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_**A/N:**__ Hmm...didn't like the beginning. Concrit please? Review and I shall squee :)_


	5. Picture

_**Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins. I don't own Hunger Games. I'm not making any money by writing this. I'm just a bored, lonely, sad, little insignificant person who can only wish to create something as wonderful as The Hunger Games. 'Wish' being the key word here.**_

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_**Picture**_

The mother bounces the baby on her knee and the baby gurgles in happiness. The sister juggles apples to entertain them and the father looks on with fondness. It's a perfect family image.

He kicks up the dirt scornfully, a thin, ragged boy watching from the sidelines. _I'm the baby_, he thinks, and tries to remember it all, the feel of sun on his skin and the touch of a mother's silk dress and the sound of laughter and love.

He tries, tries so much.

But he can't.

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_**A/N:**__ I had a lot of trouble trying to shape the prompts to fit my storyline :P And this chapter was especially difficult, probably because of my bad habit of procrastinating. Tell me if you think it's good or absolute rubbish :) _


	6. Bracelet

_**Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins so therefore I don't own Hunger Games. And does it **_**look**_** like I'm making any profit? **_

_I appreciate the reviews/story alerts very very much. I'm quite flattered that people are actually reading this :P _

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_**Bracelet**_

It was a long-standing tradition of the Barrett family for the mother to pass their family heirloom to the daughter at the time of their death and for the father to pass theirs onto the son, at the exact time, on the exact day. To outsiders, it may have been seen as some foolish, meaningless quirk of the Barrett family, but to the Barretts themselves, it was a representation of equal status and power within their family - a symbol of equality, of which the Barretts, in a world of injustice and inequality, were stoically proud of.

And so, as his mother lay dying in bed, she had called his sister in and had given her a bracelet. The bracelet was old and silver, but it had touched the wrists of many generations of Barrett females and his sister wore it with pride.

His father, however, gave him nothing.

When he went into the arena, it would have been a given that he brought the male family heirloom with him as his District token. But he entered empty-handed. _The tradition is broken_ was a thought that was visible in his sister's regretful eyes and his father's indifferent ones. There was also blame mixed in there, and pity too, he noticed sourly.

The bracelet gleamed coldly on his sister's wrist, as if mocking his inferiority.

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_**A/N:**__ To tell the truth, I was hesitant to post this one – it's possibly my least favourite out of all the ones I've written so far (this is what happens when you're working on two different fics, three challenges, a heck of a lot of schoolwork, exams and five different extracurricular activities). Anyway, comments and concrit are all very welcome. Don't be afraid to say that it's crap, provided that you tell me why and how I can improve :)_


	7. Yell

_**Disclaimer: Don't own Hunger Games. Not making profit. May or may not be Suzanne Collins.**_

_Kidding about the last one :)_

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_**Yell**_

People always listened to him when he yelled. That was the very first important life lesson that he learnt.

Yelling stopped the belt. Yelling cut off his teachers' admonitions. Yelling made the other boys cringe when he looked at them and scuttle away when he approached.

Yelling made him the obvious leader of the Career tributes.

Yelling was his favourite tool, more effective than any fist, or any sword.

It always worked.

But as he crouched beside the dying girl, dimly hearing his desperate shouts echoing across the arena, he knew that this time, his favourite tool would fail him.

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_**A/N:**__ I am absurdly proud of this drabble because it's my first "real" drabble. It's exactly 100 words! :D_


	8. Spring

**_Disclaimer: Don't own The Hunger Games. You know that. _**

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_**Spring**_

Cato hated spring with an irrational, boiling, _burning_ passion.

While summer meant warm grass and picnics, and autumn meant chilly twilights and murmured fairytales, and winter meant thick soups and crackling fires, spring meant a dark, musty room heavy with silence.

Spring, after all, was never the same again without Mother.

Until he met _her_.

Wild and defiant, tender yet determined, she had an aura of gentle fierceness that drew him to her like a magnet, like two opposite ends of the pole. She was the mirror of his hopes, his dreams and his wishes – of everything he wasn't and everything he wanted and he clung to her as tightly as he had clung to a much older woman years ago. He promised they would never be separated again and hand in hand, they entered the Games together. And hand in hand, they promised to leave together.

But on a spring night, as the girl on fire runs one way, and the boy with the bloody hands runs the other, she leaves him with one last whispering breath, just like that much older woman years ago, and he lets them, lets them pull the poles north, south, east, west, far far away from each other.

And he can do nothing but laugh, because really, it's _so_ ironic that spring, the season of life, could bring such death to his world.

Spring, after all, was never the same again without love.

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_**A/N:** I've _actually _got most of these drabbles written. Which means quicker updates, if anyone's still interested :) _


	9. Trap

_**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Not making profit at all.**_

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_**Trap**_

That day, she vanishes.

Just like Mother, she leaves him _(except at least she's _alive_)_, gone in a day, leaving her clothes and possessions to quietly rot away in her room. There's no indication that she's left, except for a slim piece of paper resting on the scarred kitchen table.

_I won't come back._

The only thing she brings with her is the bracelet.

_(And he wants to ask, why didn't she bring him with her?)_

His father drinks the most that night, and drunkenly bursts into his room, caught in a storm of anger and loss and terrifying grief with the belt clutched in one hand _(and _oh where are you where are you_ he silently cries)_. He advances, menacing, towering, but all Cato sees then is the shadowy figure of a fifteen-year-old girl moving in front of a cowering boy, looking bravely into the face of a loved one gone wrong. And all he can feel is the ghostly brush of a nightgown as the fifteen-year-old girl pushes the boy further and further away into the wall. And all he can smell is the comforting fragrance of the fifteen-year-old girl's lavender soap as she traps him against the wall and her back in a cage of safety _(squeezing his eyes shut all the while, because her screams and his shouts and the belt and the blood are all too much, too too much for his guilt)._

His back hits the wall (_just_ _like every other time_ _except_ she's not here _this time_) and again, he's trapped. But this time it's not between his sister and the wall; it's between his_ father _and the wall and he realises: this_ is why she left without me._

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_**A/N: **__This one's kind of experimental. Hope you liked it :)_


	10. Hope

_**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Not making profit at all.**_

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_**Hope**_

"Amazing," he hears the crowd whisper as, yet again, he defeats another adversary. He watches in savage satisfaction at the blood dripping from the boy's cuts. He thinks that it's a cruel reflection of his father and him except this time he's the one standing and it's a boy his age at his feet, not his father.

"Stop," the boy whispers weakly, incapable of fighting him anymore as the sword glints in the air, poised above his bleeding throat.

Cato doesn't stop though.

_One slash; _for his dead mother who left and stole hope away with her.

_Another slash;_ for the whisky and the belt and the man that is his father.

_Another;_ his sister, ever the elusive, shrinks back into the shadows of his mind.

_And one more;_ he relishes the power.

The boy is very nearly dead, slumped against the cold floor in his helplessness and Cato towers over him, triumph stamped all over his blood-sprayed face as the audience cries, as one, to their next destined victor of the 74th Hunger Games.

He might not have anything else, but he thrills in his power.

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_**A/N: **__I love reviews ^^_


	11. Opal

_**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Not making profit at all.**_

_**Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far, I really really appreciate it :)**_

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_**Opal**_

"An opal," Clove says, touching the gem on her shirt with her fingertips.

Cato knows that.

He gazes at the swirling mixture of a hundred different colours – blue, green, orange, red – glittering brilliantly against the dark fabric of Clove's shirt. An opal…worth a hundred precious memories.

_He watched as Daddy opened the velvet box, the last birthday present of the day, and they all leaned in, quivering with anticipation. Inside glittered a beautiful necklace, the most magnificent one that Cato had ever seen before. It was a cacophony of sparkling colours, catching the sunlight with its radiance._

"_An opal," their father said, proudly, and fastened it around mother's neck._

_The opal shone iridescent against the pale blue silk of his mother's dress. She smiled as she touched it gently, and for the first time, the smile was happy, every bit of it happy, with none of its customary sadness. _

He gazes at the opal, its pearly shine and glowing colours, and back to the face of the girl with the memories. And he smiles, and the smile is happy, every bit of it happy, gentle and real.

Often now, he wonders if it was Clove or the memories he fell in love with.

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_**A/N: **__I'd love a review with your thoughts._


	12. Chair

_**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Not making profit at all.**_

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_**Chair**_

The Training Room was silent, the only the sounds being the echoing cries of two people amidst a furious battle. Cato Barrett, District Two's most powerful male trainee, and Clove Earla, District Two's most promising female trainee, were engaged in their first practice together, the mutual agreement being that whoever won this fight had the right to gloat about being the best of District Two. The rest of the potential tributes watched from the sidelines, mouths hanging open at the blatant display of power of the two strongest trainees in the District.

"Yah!" Clove flew towards him, one leg out to kick him in the chest, but he dodged easily, resulting in Clove landing in a crumpled heap on the floor. Immediately, he raised a hand to attack, but she had already recovered, jumping up again to leap at him, eyes narrowed in determination.

"I –" she hissed through gritted teeth, throwing punches wildly at him, "will...DEFEAT you, Barrett!"

And moving fast as lightning, her leg hooked a chair forwards and slid it sharply towards him unexpectedly. Just as he was dodging it, mouth open with confusion, she lunged forwards and tackled him until he was lying on the ground, with her legs straddling his waist and her hands at his throat.

"You're dead," she said coolly. Then, without another word, she stood, dusted her hands with a quiet triumph and sauntered away.

Vaguely, Cato heard their trainer laughing approvingly (_very creative move Clove) _as he watched the fierce dark-haired girl walk out the door.

Then he smiled.

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_**A/N: **__Cato/Clove-ness has struck my fancy. :) Hopefully it was okay – drop a review, even if it's just a word or two, yeah?_


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